Six More
by Rapiette
Summary: Will on Louisa, and how he changes during his last six months


Just six more visits, Will Traynor told himself, as he was wheeled away from the outpatient clinic by his handler Nathan, a broad shouldered New Zealander who had been with him ever since the accident two years ago.

Six more visits. No more-and sadly, no less.

Yet six seemed such a small number, so obscenely generous in comparison to the years and years that would have otherwise lay ahead of him, had his mother not agreed, not become complicit in his plan.

Will "Action Man" Traynor, a Bond man in his own right, was going to die as he'd lived, on his own terms. How many people can put an exact timestamp on such a moment, circle a day on a calendar, and know with absolute certainty, that that's the day it all ends?

A day is something different for everyone; for some it is a birthday, an anniversary, a good day or a bad day. For Will, amongst these celebrations of life lay his deathday.

On the drive home, Will caught Nathan looking at him in the rear view mirror. Nathan held his gaze for a moment, and then reverted back to the road. With drivers in England, even a brief, momentary glance off the road could cost you your life-this Will could personally attest to. As their eyes had momentarily locked gazes, Nathan's eyes seemed to say all that Will's heart beat: Six more, six more, six more.

Upon arriving home, through the large iron gates that Will used to speed through on his motorbike, or perhaps glide through in his Range Rover, Nathan checks his tubes once more, in silence outside of small medical questions Nathan asks about adjusting tubes, his blood pressure, and things human beings shouldn't have to be asked about three times a day. They work in silence because that's how Will likes it, and Nathan likes what Will likes.

It is then that they are interrupted by a knock.

"Will?" It's Mrs, Traynor, her voice slightly less icy than usual. It's then Will remembers, today is the day he meets his new carer-he had managed to scare the last one off, and the one before, lovely elderly Mrs, Fitzpatrick, had snuck off to the dry cleaners allowing Will to try to end his misery. He had regrettably failed, and gotten a new carer, perhaps more aptly called his very own personal suicide watch. Has his mother told them why the contract is only six months?

"He's decent, Mrs. T," says Nathan, tactfully speaking before he gets a chance to. The doors slide open, and Will takes a moment, grappling with his finger and thumb struggling to turn his chair. It's right as Nathan looks about to swoop in that he manages to place his fingers just right, and turns to face his new carer and his lovely mother.

It's a girl. She is simple, doughy, plain. She is smiling. Will hates her.

A week passes-no more slowly than the others, so he is thankful. His new carer, Louisa Clark, however, is proving harder to shake. She wasn't scared off at their first meeting, despite his best efforts. She wasn't scared off no matter how short or rude he was in the following encounters either. She simply wasn't scared. Hurt, yes, by his rude words and rejection of her kindness and compassion, but not scared. Will is certain she will quit within the week. She knows he hates her, and she has learned to make herself scarce around him.

Yet she proves herself to not be quite as weak and simpleminded as Will had thought the day Alicia and Rupert-bastard-came to call. They were getting married, Rupert had excitedly announced, and thought it was only right that he hear it from them.

At least Alicia had the decency to at least pretend to look saddened by seeing him in such a state, perhaps wondering what they could have been had Will not landed himself paralyzed and in a wheelchair.

After they left, Will smashes the photographs of his old life. He doesn't need a photographic reminder of what he sees in his dreams each night.

And then there Louisa is in the doorway at the sound of glass breaking. Will feels a twinge of gratitude: her eyes are filled not with the scalding look of pity he so despises, but with foreign understanding.

He catches her later with glue in hand, looking to mend the frames, bent over them with a look of concentration on her face. One frame is face down on the table, he can tell its Alicia's by the silver trimming.

He tries to tell her off, sickened at his earlier feelings of gratitude towards her, but out of nowhere, a strong voice erupts from Clark, a visceral reaction to his bullying. He tries to push her some more, and yet is stumped by her fearless impudence. They draw a truce, demonstrated by him speeding away on his chair out of the room, and her placing the broken frames in the bottom drawer of his bureau.

He begins to think there is more to Clark than meets the eye. Beyond her obscenely colourful and juvenile wardrobe, and her oversmiling face, there is a certain fire in her over brimming with emotion and passion.

Despite his cold treatment of her, when he falls ill she keeps watch over him, even as he sleeps when Nathan is late because of a massive snowstorm.

She is there in sickness and in health, even driving him to doctors appointments. As a team of quadriplegic experts barrage him with questions in the examination room, he hears her from the other side of the glass, in the waiting room. She's wearing an obscene pink trench coat, and she's talking about him to Nathan.

Will makes fun of her in good humor for the first time when he forces her to watch a foreign film, and at the end of it she actually cries, so overcome with emotion. He laughs, but she can never know that's how he reacted to his first French film as well-the exact one he showed her.

Clark doesn't know about Dignitas, that much he can tell, and he won't tell her; it doesn't feel right. Yet Will  
cannot put a finger on why.

Another thing Clark will therefore never know: part of his six months deal with his parents and doctors is to attend group therapy sessions discussing whatever the hell the leader, a large, Afro-haired lady named Margaret, decides is worthwhile. It's for other people with loss of limb use, and has proven, scientific results to improve outlook on life for its participants.

Will goes, because he has to, to get what he wants. Will goes, because that's all he is required to do for Dignitias now that paperwork has gone through to certify that he is a deserving candidate for Dignitas's services. But Will doesn't speak, because he doesn't have to, and Will thinks this is justified because living itself is something he doesn't want to do any more, and Will had learned to look for victories where he can get them, no matter how small and pathetic. In the very least, he can still speak at will, he still has a choice.

So he chooses not to.

Clark will never know about his therapy sessions, firstly because she will never know about Dignitas until it hits the papers on newsstands in five months time, assuming she cares enough to read the articles about him that will surely be on every front page of local news. And secondly, because she was the type that would be disappointed that he doesn't talk or participate, and this puts a strange feeling in Walters stomach.

It's pretty fortunate that Nathan and Will have reached the same unspoken conclusions, and group sessions to Clark will never be anything other than doctors appointments that she isn't paid for nor asked to attend.

"So gather round chaps, great day to be inside, eh?" Begins Margaret, as the herd of wheelchairs buzz closer to her, encircling her like prey. It's raining outside, and Will disappears off in his memories of hostile surfing in Hawaii long ago in the pouring rain.

"Today we will go over annoyances. It can be anything, really. Just things that bother you. Vent. What can be done about them? How can you handle them respective to your situation?" Says Margaret, raising her voice as one attendee has a coughing fit. "You know the drill lads, and I've only got forty five minutes with you lot so we've got to move on to the next exercise as soon as we can."

Ronald, one of the three others living with quadriplegia starts off the group of six with his frustrations of simple tasks like brushing teeth and eating, to which the rest of the group nods along in agreement with. He wants to continue on things he can't do, but he veers into PG-13 content before Margaret shushes him.

Annoyances? Will has many, what Ronald has said and more, the main one being his new carer. She has wormed her way into his life, and because frowning at her when she sends one of her beaming smiles her way is proving more difficult day by day, he's stopped intentionally tormenting her.

She made him get rid of his beard, he'd agreed to it of course, but- let the record show that she'd made him, Will thought. And then because the beard was gone, which had given him a scraggly, unkempt look, he figured he might as well go ahead and shear his long hair off as well.

Looking in the mirror, and looking very closely, Will could almost see the old Will, the real Will, the Will who had died in that motorbike accident.

Will doesn't speak in the group that day, and nobody makes him, as usual. Nathan comes to pick him up, and the begin the typically wordless journey home, until Nathan breaks the silence.

"Louisa's taken the day off for a family thing, mate, thought I'd let you know. Mrs T told me earlier today, so looks like we're in for the long haul today."

Will doesn't respond, he's too busy wondering what led to such an uncharacteristic move from his ever-predictable carer. Based off of what he knew of her life, it was highly unlikely she had anywhere to be other than her job.

He hopes she's okay, and then asks Nathan for more pain meds once they reach home. Will knows he shouldn't abuse them and he never does, except he had forgotten what it was like to worry about someone other than himself, and it hurts.

But nonetheless he sees her again, and she is bubbling on and on about going to see some horse race at a nearby racetrack. Will has been many times before and knows the track and racing quite well, as growing up his grandfather took him to the courses on days when the expanse of the castle bored him. He doesn't like racing, or horses, but he will go. He will go because he thinks she wants to.

The race turns out to be a massive failure, not only for Clarks atrocious betting on a horse that ended up in dead last, bur then afterwards being humiliatingly denied service at the track restaurant. Will longs for the days when all it took was a bright smile to get his way with a lady.

Unfortunately, Louisa's charm doesn't work, and they are humiliatingly turned away, empty stomached and red faced.

Will later tells her he hates racing, and that the day was a failure and she was no better than the rest of them, going ahead and assuming things for him.

He's not lying, he hates racing. He hates everything; he hates it when he's stuck in a chair, getting stuck in mud, and being stared at like an alien. Of course he hates it.

On a walk one cold and blustery morning, they're bantering about something or other while smiles are cemented on both of their faces, and Will can't help but notice her shoes-heeled, flowery, and anything but fashionable.

"What do you mean about that?" Clark indignantly replies to Will's sarcastic compliment that masks an insult about her unique taste in clothing, and her surprising and frankly unbelievable deep seeded desire to go into fashion if she were to attend college.

Will jokingly tells Clark that he was under the impression that people go to school to study fashion to avoid a fashion faux pas, not to try to spread them.

They're not from around here, he tells her, those tells her the truth about their little town, one that she doesn't seem to know. That this is a place where people go when they are tired of living. That excitement here is a new "Please Be Quiet" sign going up in a library.

"But I like it here!" Clark exclaimed.

"Well, you shouldn't, Clark."

It's beyond Will how she can be so content with her life. She's told him herself; she goes to work and then goes home. Her entire life happens in a one mile radius in a suburb of Birmingham.

Yet she's so firey, so passionate, and so alive and full of-yes-potential. It reminds him of himself, and how he used to be. He makes it his goal, with the time he has left, to teach her that she only has one life, and it's her duty to live it as fully as possible.

He takes her to a concert the night after another group therapy session with Margaret and the regular bunch. Will sits off to the side as always, and the group carries on.

"Today we're talking about finding meaning in things, in life," begins Margaret. The group pours their hearts out for Margaret as always, either truly participating or hoping Margaret will sign off on them and say they have successfully completed the program so they can live the rest of their lives Margaret and group therapy free.

Will thinks of Clark, and hopes Nathan remembered to pick up the new suit he'd ordered.

Group therapy is over for the day, and all Will can think about is the four more sessions he will have to endure, and then how best to have Nathan comb his hair for the concert.

She drives, but Will finds he can't keep his eyes glazed forward on the road as he usually does when they're out. She's wearing a marvellous red dress, revealing not her skin but her silhouette. Will isn't sure how he'll make it through the night without staring like a right tosser. It gets even worse when she bites the tag off of his new tuxedo, lightly nipping his neck. Her face is red for the rest of the evening because the entire concert hall saw her remove the tag. Will's face is red because he can't stop thinking about her teeth on his neck. He's never felt so imprisoned within his own body before.

Clark is truly infuriating, but Will is glad for it. He's grown tired of how most people carefully tiptoe around him. But Clark, such a delightfully frustrating girl, does the opposite. She is unafraid of his sarcasm, his biting remarks that were once made out of genuine dislike but now out of good humour. He's got Clark and Nathan, and there are even some moments were the pain and desperation that plague him vanish, and Will even has a day where he goes to bed at night thinking about the possibility of life, rather than the impossibility.

The next month passes by relatively quickly-almost too quickly, Will thinks. There nearly isn't time in the day for Clark to spout out all of her ridiculous jokes, which he laughs at because how could he not, looking at her charming, earnest smile.

They've grown to become a special pair. Clark doesn't leave for her lunch break anymore, and she hasn't for a while, but Will can't remember when she started doing this. They eat together, and her cooking is surprisingly edible and quite palatable, until he remembers she did work at a bakery for six years.

He's been invited over to her house to celebrate her birthday.

Will has to hide his enthusiasm at the invitation, not only from Clark but himself.

He finds it hard to concentrate when Clark is not around, and late at night when he is alone and stuck in bed, in whatever position Nathan has laid him down in, he thinks of Clark's broad smile and red lips and thinks that as long as he can make it to tomorrow morning when she arrives, he will be okay.

Her parents were set off balance by him as he arrived at the door, but after a brief awkward moment of her father trying to shake his hand, conversation gets underway as they are seated around the table and Will feels as if he is not what Clark's family expected.

Her mother begs him to call her by her first name, and her father asks quite a few questions about his time in the business world. They don't ask about his chair, and don't stare as Clark feeds him like she always does. It's odd, and he feels human again.

Clark's boyfriend, Patrick, whom he has heard quite a bit about, finally makes an appearance halfway through dinner.

Will relishes in the feeling of his eyes, trained on him as Clark tends to him, brushing away crumbs on his lips from the cornbread.

Patrick is easily made jealous, it seems. This seems to hint at potential cracks in the relationship, Will thinks, as Patrick makes a few useless comments, that Will interprets as a weak attempt at a dig at his accident and physical therapy.

Will had been the top corporate lawyer in London specializing in negotiations between the biggest players in multibillion pound industries. He was, and still was that day, an expert in reading people. Poor Patrick was threatened like a twelve year girl in junior high.

Will couldn't stop a Cheshire Cat grin from spreading onto his face when Clark went ballistic over his birthday gift, and seemed to care little for Patrick's gift. The necklace Patrick had purchased wasn't Clark's taste at all, any fool could see that.

The next group therapy session was about friends. Friendship, said Margaret, can be essential in the healing process.

For the first time, Will speaks. In his third group therapy session he speaks, and to Margaret's credit she looks minimally surprised.

"For some of us there is no healing, Margaret," Will calls from his dusty corner of the room.

All of the group members that can, turn their heads in his direction. Those who couldn't simply leaned back in their chairs, closer to him, surprised at his participation.

Margaret looked over her glasses at Will, seeing how the soft lighting of the room illuminate Will like an Angel of God himself.

"We can all heal from something, Mr. Traynor." Margaret says, looking at him pointedly before she turns back to the rest of the group and leaves him behind.

Her words echo in his mind for the rest of the day. He had given up on his spine long ago, that wouldn't heal. But perhaps his heart could; perhaps it already had.

"How was it, bud?" Asks Nathan when he wheels Will into the car, starting off the drive home.

"Fun and games as always," says Will.

Will has always said this after every session. But today his heart isn't in it and Will says no more, and Nathan has the sense to be quiet for the rest of the drive.

Will and Louisa get tattoos. For her, a bumblebee, and for him a "best before" date stamped to his chest: the day of his accident. Louisa says he's got a terrible sense of humour with that tattoo, but she's still laughing, drunk on adrenaline.

Will and Louisa go to a wedding.

It's not theirs, but they make it their own. Louisa gets delightfully drunk as Alicia and Rupert flit from guest to guest, tactfully avoiding Will outside of a brief and awkward moment with Alicia.

He doesn't realize exactly how drunk Clark is until after a night of turning on the dance floor in his chair to the horror of the other wedding guests. The porter helps him settle into bed, and Will is certain he made the right decision; Louisa was far, far too drunk to have driven them home.

Will doesn't sleep at night, and is instead held prisoner by the dull thud of pain from his tubes needing changing. The alternative would have been to wake Louisa, who was a room away so he was unsure how he would even do it. Yet she needed her sleep, and even if he was still able bodied Will thought he would have been unable to wake her from slumber. But of course had he been able bodied, Will thought, they would have been doing things other than sleeping.

Mrs. Traynor is horrified when they finally do return home. She was scared out of her wits, she says. But she's finally quiet when she's assured all is well when Will stops her from admonishing Louisa.

But all is not well, and Will is sweating and breathing heavily. Nathan is mad at him, rightfully pissed for his negligence. He's right to be upset, outside of Louisa, nobody is more invested in him than assured him he will be fine, and he's right, by some miracle his body stabilizes and he sleeps soundly at night, and all he can think in his dreams is "Louisa, Louisa, louisa."

In his dreams he takes her to Paris, Rio, and Moscow, all while singing that damned Molahonkey song.

At the wedding, he'd made a deal with Louisa. They would get away for a few days, vacation in Yellowstone, skydive, the whole yards. A few months ago, the thought of leaving his home paralyzed him-no pun intended. Yet Will found all he could think about was how much Louisa would love America and travelling. Hopefully this trip would show her that there was awhile to explore, once he was long gone.

Will begins to think that he needs to leave her money after he goes to Dignitas. Her father is out of a job, until Will tactfully blackmails his father into hiring Mr. Clark. Even so, another job at a bakery wouldn't fund the life Will wants her to have. That she deserves to have. So, Will gives Michael Lawler, a wills lawyer extraordinaire, a call.

Things were going marvellously, despite the fact that Louisa moves in with Patrick. Will is at first angry, but takes this as a sign that perhaps Dignitas is truly the only place for him. Better to see Louisa with a man who can give her things that a cripple like him can't.

And suddenly things weren't going marvellously at all; Will lands in the hospital with pneumonia again. He's lost track of how many times in the last two years he's been in the same predicament. Will drifts in and out of consciousness, seeing the fuzzy outline of Louisa above him.

Their plans are cancelled, but Will is determined to have Louisa see the world. The only way she'll go is if he takes her, he reasons with himself.

With the aftermath of cancelled plans hanged over their heads, Will at least seeks comfort in the fact that he was out long enough to miss a therapy session. One more date with Margaret, and he's free. He feels happy at this realization, but when Louisa turns to him and asks what he's so cheery about, Will is certain that he will throw up. The end of therapy means the end of his life, the end of Will and Louisa.

The weather is warm, and Will and Louisa go for walks in the castle and gardens quite often, trying to settle on a single spot to vacation in a vain attempt to recapture the glory of their previous plans.

Will remembers the day when Louisa revealed why she is so comfortable in her small, safe world. This is something Will thinks of often, but if anything Louisa does the opposite as the days pass. The fear that used to accompany her voice when she talked about putting travelling plans together for them has vanished, and Will starts to think that maybe he's changed her for the better after all.

On the morning of his last group session, Will can hardly look at Louisa as she feeds him.

As he wheels in, Margaret begins group and Will stares at the clock.

They discuss what the meaning of life is for each attendee. Margaret eventually turns to him, looking expectant.

Will speaks, because why the hell not, and because he'll be dead soon enough anyway and this is the last time he'll see these people.

"My life has no meaning," Will begins, and Margaret blinks owlishly at him. Will chooses his words carefully. This is the last time his voice will ever echo in this room, the last time these people will hear words come out of his mouth. "My value is how I impact those around me."

Will wishes he could say something more impactful, more moving. He's always imagined his own famous last words. But images of Louisa cloud his vision and his senses, and with a final look around the room, he locks eyes with Margaret and wheels out of the room.

"That's it, old dog." Says Nathan. Will stares out of the window in silence.

They settle on Mauritius, for their trip, an amalgamation little islands near Madagascar. Each day is a blissful collage of laying in the sun for hours while eating delicious food and laughing at Nathan's pathetic attempts to windsurf.

Louisa scuba dives, at the behest of Will and loud, boisterous encouragement of Nathan. She succeeds, and Will hopes she can finally see that she is much capable of so, so much more than she thinks.

Louisa tells Will she loves him. Will wishes there was a way to make her understand that nobody, nothing could change his mind. He doesn't want to die, like most people would assume. He just sure as hell cant keep living like this.

He of course also loves her; star crossed lovers they are then, thinks Will. They outdo Romeo and Juliet tenfold.

Turns out she's known about Dignitas all along, also.

Louisa ignores him for the flight home, feeling as if she tore her heart out in front of him only to not only be turned down, but to be asked to do the last thing a lover would want to do:watch their other half die.

They part ways, and with little pomp and circumstance, he boards a plane to Switzerland with his family. He bade goodbye to Nathan, and as the plane took off from Heathrow International, Will can't help but hold his breath, picturing Louisa impishly throwing the plane doors open, in a loud, clumsy way that only Louisa could manage, and announce she would change her mind and accompany him in a final act of loyalty.

Will looks around the room that he is meant to die in. Tomorrow evening, he will be a corpse, laying exactly where he is now, exactly the way he is now. The only difference in the thrum of his heart.

"Do you need anything, Willie?" His mother asks through a thick and throaty voice, reverting back to his babyhood nickname.

Will says the first thing that comes to mind.

"Louisa."

Will can't exactly believe his eyes when that's exactly what he gets.

On the morning of his deathday, there she is, standing at the doorway of the room. He's on his deathbed-literally-and wonders if maybe he's landed in heaven and already on the other side.

Louisa has given him the greatest gift of all; her acceptance of his decision. Whether or not she's truly supportive isn't quite clear, but she's trying, she's being brave.

Will loves her, and she loves him. Him dying doesn't change that.

She lays down with him, and their last conversation is a hushed, unhurried thing.

Time stands still, and the minutes stretch into years. Will is grateful for this time; the infinity is small, but it is theirs. Will Traynor and Louisa Clark.

He likes the sound of Will and Louisa Traynor a lot, he tells her this, and it brings him comfort to think that in some parallel universe, it's a reality.

"Can you call my parents in, Clark?"

He asks. His final request to his devoted carer. He will never ask anything more of her; how could he?

She returns with Mr. and Mrs. Traynor in her wake. The nurse, a lady whom his mother would have probably looked like had she not begun a strict Botox regimen years ago, asks Will if he is sure that he wants to die.

He's sure of lots of things, but none of them he can truly have in this life.

Taking the small glass from the nurse, he looks at his death: a white, milky-looking solution in what appeared to be a shot glass.

A swift gulp and that's all there is to it.

A life lived to fullest-until the fullest was no longer enough, and the immediate taste of tartness and a woody flavour coats Will's tongue. He can't help but make a bit of a face at the vile taste, and bites into the chocolate that Louisa offers him.

It's his final moments, and he feels nothing but calm. Louisa on his left side, his parents and sister on his right. They aren't crying, but they're all on the verge of a sharp cliff, and Will starts to fall.

He is swimming through darkness; he kicks through it. He is free, weightless, unbound, gravitating towards a timeless light above. Yet he cannot see this light, only he feels its warmth, and he floats closer and closer, relishing in the warmth of it, like a moth to a flame.

Something snags Will's ankle-he kicks it off, rising, rising, and rising with a balloon in his chest.

He soars, onwards and upwards-to the light.

Excelsior!

He has become the light.


End file.
